If you understand some French, Italian could be even easier, so don't worry!
BTW here local sim cars don't have instructions in other languages than Italian (AFAIK), but you can have English prompts when you call the service number for refilling, so it's not that bad.
A global roaming sim such as Travelsim or United Mobile can be a good solution, expecially an ICQ Sim which is very cheap to buy. At the same time it's also very straightforward to get a simcard here in Italy and I suppose in France too, and surely it's cheaper for local calls and SMS, at least in Italy, while in France prepaids are quite expensive.